Pope John Paul II, by stating that celibacy belongs logically to the
priesthood (General Audience 17 July 1993), challenges us to discern why
this should be so. He asserted furthermoreperhaps
for the first time in papal parlancethat the
twelve apostles likely began the tradition of priestly celibacy:
"According to the Gospel, it appears that the Twelve, destined to
be the first to share in his priesthood, renounced family life in order
to follow him."

In this remarkable address the Pope offered three basic
considerations which render celibacy logical for priests:

2) Increases availability of the priest for complete service of the
Gospel.

3) Enhances the spiritual fruitfulness of the priest's ministry.

That the Gospel gives evidence of apostolic celibacy is our first
consideration. That this has special meaning for the priest is our
second point; for the third point we will draw upon an insight of
Blessed John Scotus.

The itinerant life style of the apostles excluded marriage

The itinerant lifestyle of the apostles during Christ's three years
of public life practically crowded out thoughts about marriage and
family life. "Come, follow me," Jesus said very simply to
Peter and Andrew as they were casting their nets. "I will make you
fishers of men" (Matt. 4:19). They did exactly that: leaving their
nets they followed him. That would be quite unusual if they intended to
support a family.

Going on from there, Christ saw James and John, also fishermen. Jesus
called them too, and "immediately they left the boat and their
father and followed him" (Matt. 4:22). We see a pattern developing,
of disciples who quit work which is necessary to support a family.

Matthew was sitting in his tax collector's booth when Christ motioned
to him. "Follow me." Matthew rose and followed him (Matt.
9:9). From the gospel story, we can't even be sure that Matthew locked
up the cash and closed the door behind him. He could hardly behave like
that if he intended to lead a normal family life.

Christ eventually filled out the band to twelve whom he then called
apostles (Luke 6:12-16). This initial band, according to Matthew, then
traveled throughout Galilee preaching the good news of the kingdom.
Their home, henceforth, was the road. Their income was alms.

The apostles were homeless

Jesus made no secret about the kind of life he expected of the
Twelve. He sent them out to proclaim that "the kingdom of heaven is
near" (Matt. 10:7). He instructed them to take no money along to
pay for their lodging and food. They were to sleep in any suitable home
where the host would welcome them. If the apostles had wives, these
spouses might rightly be concerned about where their husbands were
sleepingnamely in any house that would accept
them. We find no trace of wifely concern about this in the Gospel.

Normally, married men should inform their wives about their
whereabouts, should be breadwinners for the home, should educate their
children; and wives should cook for them, do their laundry, keep the
house in order. We see that the lifestyle Jesus led with the apostles
practically prevented them from leading a normal family life. Family
life was not compatible with their itinerant apostolic lifestyle as
described in the Gospel.

When the apostles were hungry, they didn't go back home to get a good
meal with wife and children. They could still the pangs by plucking ears
of wheat from the fields through which they were walking, and chew on
the uncooked grains. Before the multiplication of the loaves and fishes,
no wife of an apostle came forward to supply their needs. It was Andrew
who found an alert boy who had brought along five small barley loaves
and two fishes. The Gospel does not inform us how much Andrew may have
paid him. No wives came forward either, to help the apostles distribute
the loaves and fishes to the people, as these apparently multiplied in
their hands.

It was the ambitious mother of James and John who knelt down before
Jesus to ask that her sons might sit, one at his right, the other at his
left, in his kingdom (Matt. 20:21). When the other ten heard about it,
they were indignant, and Christ had to soothe their anger and put down
their political ambitions. We can imagine what a ruckus this might have
caused if wives of the apostles were involved, and if Christ would have
to calm them down. We see no signs of wifely concern about apostles in
this episode nor in any passage of the four Gospel accounts.

At the wedding feast in Cana of Galilee Jesus and his disciples had
been invited, but nothing is said about wives of these disciples. Cana
is not far from Capharnaumabout 20 mileswhere
Christ healed the mother-in-law of Peter. Had Peter and other apostles
been leading a normal family life, we might expect John to mention their
presence at the feast, the one at which the wine ran out.

In John Chapter 4 we read that Jesus sat down at Jacob's well in the
town of Sichar. He was tired from the journey, a walk of over 20 miles,
from the depression of the Jordan River, up into the hill country. The
apostles left him at the well while they went to town to shop for the
noon meal. The episode lifts the curtain on the lifestyle of this
itinerant group: the apostles did the shopping for food, and prepared
the meals. No wives of the apostles were in the picture.

The apostles were not always the best of providers. They were caught
several times without due provisions: when in the desert before the
multiplication of the loaves and fishes; and when they got into the boat
without taking along any bread. Jesus endured this make-shift nomadic
life with the apostles, and challenged newcomers to join in if they
wished. Some wanted to follow him but not on his terms:

Then a teacher of the law came to him and said, "Teacher, I will
follow you wherever you go." Jesus replied: "Foxes have holes
and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay
his head." Another disciple said to him, "Lord, first let me
go and bury my father." But Jesus told him, "Follow me, and
let the dead bury their own dead" (Matt. 8:19-22).

A rich young man was told: "Sell everything you have and give to
the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow
me" (Luke 18:22). That is not the kind of advice one gives to a man
preparing for marriage, or to a husband and father who intends to care
for a family.

At that point, Peter spoke up, reminding Christ that they had
actually made the renunciations which the rich young man had failed to
make. Peter said to Jesus: "We have left all we had to follow
you." Christ then gave explicit approval to what Peter and the
apostles had apparently done:

"I tell you the truth: no one who has left home or wife or
brothers or parents or children for the sake of the kingdom of God will
fail to receive many times as much in this age and, in the age to come,
eternal life" (Luke 18:29-30).

If the meals they prepared left something to be desired, Christ made
the concession of allowing Martha and Mary to prepare something better
when they were in the neighborhood; and if they attended one wedding
feast together in Cana, it is not impossible that there were other
wedding feasts. Maybe Christ's mother, Mary, got things ready for them
when they visited Nazareth. And perhaps the holy women who were
following Jesus knew how to supplement the shopping of the men, so that
their meals had more of a variety. At any rate, we read the Gospels
correctly, I believe, when we understand that the apostles were living
apart from their families and made Christ alone their part and their
inheritance: "Dominus pars mea et hereditas mea."

The Gospel also tells us that the disciples made the preparations for
the Feast of the Unleavened Bread. Christ ordained them to be priests on
this solemn occasion. We do not read about wives participating in the
Last Supper.

Perhaps the abandonment of family life helps to explain the attitude
of the apostles at the time of Christ's passion and death. They had
given their all for life with Jesus. Now it turned out that he was a
tragic failure. And they were completely at a loss. They had renounced
their property and their homes, also parents, wife and children if they
had such.

Peter, following Christ at a distance, was petrified with fear when a
maid servant pointed an accusing finger at him: "You also were with
Jesus the Galilean" (Matt. 26:69). Others accused him as well.
Peter then fell back into what must have been an old habit: cursing and
swearing. By this kind of swagger he sought to bluff his way out of
danger and ridicule. For him the end of the world had arrived. PerhapsI
say this on my ownperhaps he thought to
himself: "What would my wife say now, if I try to sneak back home
like this?" And the other apostles, perhaps, had a similar attack
of disappointment and depression. But that any of them went home to
consult with a family is nowhere written in the Gospel. Women followed
Christ to serve him but wives did not follow apostles to serve them.

We read that many women were there at the crucifixion, watching from
a distance; that they had followed Jesus from Galilee to care for his
needs. Among them was at least one relative, namely the mother of James
and John, Zebedee's sons (Matt. 27:55-56). The Synoptics mention
expressly, as though to make a point of it, that the women used to
follow Christ when he was in Galilee, and that many other women had come
up with him, that is, with Christ, to Jerusalem. These women were there
because they were following Christ. The Gospels do not say they were
following the apostles, to serve their needs.

This is significant, I believe. If Peter's wife was there too, would
it not be logical to mention this? The Gospel, by omitting mention of
the presence of wives of the apostles, is telling us, I believe, that if
the apostles did have wives at the time, they were now living separately
from them. Family life was a thing of the past. They had renounced it to
devote themselves totally to Christ.

John's version of events after the resurrection reveals interesting
details, suggesting that the Apostles lived a common life. Mary
Magdalene, when she saw the empty tomb, ran to tell Simon Peter and the
other disciple whom Jesus loved. Where were these two living, so that
Mary Magdalene could find them so easily while it was still dark? The
two left their lodging, saw the events at the tomb, and then
"returned home" (John 20:10). Home? Well, "back to
themselves" literally. "Pros h'autous" reads the
Greek, which St. Jerome translates "ad semetipsos."
Apparently the Apostles shared living quarters for men only, whereas the
women lived apart.

The above coverage is incomplete, but the episodes cited indicate
that it was quite impractical, even impossible, for the apostles to
follow Christ in the manner he demanded of them, and at the same time
take care of a family. They made their choice, surely on their own
without being forced to do so by Christ; but choose they did. When
Christ beckoned, they dropped everything and made him their all.
They had discovered the treasure hidden in the field, the pearl of great
price; they stopped looking for anything else.

When Andrew told his brother Simon Peter: "We have found the
Messiah" (John 1:41), he didn't feel the need to explain anything
beyond that. To find the Messiah, and to live with him, that completely
filled out their lives. As the Pope said, "According to the
Gospels, it appears that the Twelve... renounced family life in order to
follow him."

The Priest: Called to be a friend of the incarnate Christ

"I call you friends," said Jesus to the Twelve on the
occasion of their priestly ordination at the Last Supper. He disclosed
to them that he had given them a personal call to be his friends;
friends to whom he can disclose everything; friends who will live as he
did, who will devote themselves to the Gospel as he had done, who will
be consecrated as he was consecrated and set apart from the world.

You are my friends if you do what I command you. I no longer call you
slaves, because a slave does not know what his master is doing. I have
called you friends, because I have told you everything I have heard from
my Father. It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you and
appointed you to go and bear fruit that will remain, so that whatever
you ask the Father in my name he may give you (John 15:14-16).

To be specially selected friends, then, was one reason why Christ
personally chose the Twelve and ordained them to the priesthood. The
beloved disciple did not hesitate to use the leverage of this special
friendship. For example, at the Last Supper, when Jesus was troubled
about the betrayer, the beloved disciple approached Jesus and asked
about this very sensitive matter: "He leaned back against Jesus'
chest and said to him, 'Master, who is it?'" And, being a true
Friend, Jesus gave the cryptic signal indicating who the betrayer was.

In the High Priestly Prayer, Jesus asked the Father to first of all
bless this circle of friends, who were now priests: "Consecrate
them in truth.... I consecrate myself for them, so that they also may be
consecrated in truth" (John 17: 17, 19). By consecrating them with
himself, he separated them from secular purposes for an exclusively
sacred functionfor the function of the
ministerial priesthood, which is the heart of the mission of Christ's
coming into this world.

"Doctor Subtilis"

Duns Scotus deems that the Son of God became Incarnate to become the
priest of the cosmos, to give glory to God from the platform which God
would fashion outside of himself. The Son would become man to reflect
glory back to the Godhead from the outside, from out of a created world:

"God first loves Himself; secondly, He loves Himself for others,
and this is an ordered love; thirdly He wishes to be loved by the One
who can love Him in the highest wayspeaking of
the love of someone who is extrinsic to Him; and fourthly, He foresees
the union of that nature which must love Him with the greatest love even
if no one had fallen (Opus Par. III, d.7.q.4; Eng. trans. Fr.
Juniper B. Carol, OFM, The Universal Primacy of Christ;
Christendom Publications, 1984).

This insight indicates that Christ became incarnate first of all in
order to love God from within the created cosmos. More than that, he is
to recapitulate the cosmos into his own mind which spans the cosmic
dimensions, and dedicate it all to God with love during his immolation.
The Son of God offers back to God the cosmos, through his obedience as
the Word Made Flesh. Through this dedication of the cosmos by Christ in
whom the universe is recapitulated, the world again belongs to God and
sings his praises. The world has lost its insular secularism, and is now
integrated into the praises of God, having been purchased by Christ, and
delivered to the Father.

The cosmos has been created, in this concept, not for its own sake
but to give glory to God. And Christ is the priest who takes this cosmos
into himself as his own, and makes the entire universe sing its
obedience to God to give him glory.

The priest, who is called to Christ's side to be his chosen friend,
participates in this priestly function of dedicating the universe to
God. Like Christ, the priest is consecratedset
aside from secular purposesto live the cosmic
consecration to God.

The priest should not marry then, and have children. That is a proper
pursuit of the ongoing cosmos, that cosmos which the priest must
consecrate to God in himself. All that is precious in this secular world
is recapitulated in the priest who offers it to God, who is doing so in
persona Christi.

The priest has no need to contribute to the continuation of the
cosmos itself, by taking a wife and begetting children. Other people are
commissioned by God to "Be fruitful and multiply" to
"fill the earth and subdue it" (Gen. 1:28). Christ chooses the
priest to be his friend, to recapitulate this cosmos in his life and
thoughts, to offer it to God in obedience, for the praise of his glory.

The priest continues to perform in his person the cosmic priesthood
of Christ. He gazes at the stars at night to praise the Lord Creator. He
calls his fellow men to "Repent, for the Kingdom of God is at
hand." He rejoices in the Spirit because God has revealed to little
ones what he has hidden from the great. He salts the earth with truth,
and with rebukes when necessary. He lays down his life for love of his
friends. And he immolates himself for the Church, as Christ who prayed
on the cross when the pains were reaching their tingling climax:

"I will proclaim your name to my brethren; in the midst of the
assembly I will praise you ... I will utter praise in the vast assembly;
I will fulfill my vows before those who fear him" (Ps. 22).

To gather up the cosmos and dedicate it to God, that, in the mind of
Scotus, was Christ's primary mission. We can add that he brought this
mission to a climax and to completion when he consecrated the Bread and
Wine at the Last Supper, then fulfilled the pre-signified offering on
Calvary, at his Resurrection, and by his Ascension. The evil which
flooded over him and overwhelmed him on Calvarythe
pain, thirst, loneliness, abandonment, sense of betrayalwere
but grist to be milled by his determination into obedience to the Lord.
Through it all he held firm, and made the universe obedient to God
forever and ever. Love prevailed over hate, obedience over rebellion.
Now the universe was his, and he offered his prize to the Father as he
rose again, and ascended to his side.

The priest, friend and companion of Christ, also rejoices with the
good things of life as Christ did, to make all belong to God. And he
meets all the temptations that the world and his flesh can throw at him;
with Christ the priest turns it all into God's praise. Is celibacy a
sacrifice, a daily cross, a challenge? All the more, then, does he bring
his performance into action, to recapitulate the best things of the
world into himself, to offer all to God in praise of his glory. For:

"God ... wishes to be loved by One who can love Him in the
highest wayspeaking of the love of someone
extrinsic to Him; and speaking of the ministerial priest who loves God
out of this cosmos with the love in which he personifies Christ."

Rightfully did the Pope state that celibacy belongs to the priesthood
by a law of logic:

"These observations help us to understand the reasons for the
Church's legislation on priestly celibacy. In fact, the Church has
considered and still considers that it belongs to the logic of priestly
consecration and to the total belonging to Christ resulting from
it" (General Audience, 17 July 1993).

And gentle Pope John XXIII asked that priests continue to struggle to
keep the obligations of celibacy, especially when the Church needs
heroic people to be the salt of the earth:

"It deeply hurts us that ... anyone can dream that the Church
will deliberately or even suitably renounce what from time immemorial
has been, and still remains, one of the purest and noblest glories of
her priesthood. The law of ecclesiastical celibacy and the efforts
necessary to preserve it always recall to mind the struggles of heroic
times when the Church of Christ had to fight for and succeeded in
obtaining her threefold glory, always an emblem of victory, that is, the
Church of Christ, free, chaste, and catholic" (John XXIII, to Roman
Synod, January 26, 1960).

Sixteen hundred years ago, in the year 390, a group of Bishops was
gathered at Carthage to discuss celibacy. Presumably, they had much the
same problems with it as the clergy will always have. At the end of the
session these Bishops renewed their resolution with memorable words:
"What the apostles taught and what antiquity itself observed, let
us also continue." Today, 400,000 priests around the globe stand
proud to repeat these words, mindful that Christ has selected them to be
his close friends.